(Begin excerpts)BEIJING, July 11 (Reuters) - China hit back on Tuesday in unusually strong terms at repeated calls from the United States to put more pressure on North Korea, urging a halt to what it called the "China responsibility theory", and saying all parties needed to pull their weight....

Asked about calls from the United States, Japan and others for China to put more pressure on North Korea, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said it was not China ratcheting up tension and the key to a resolution did not lie with Beijing....

While China has been angered by North Korea's repeated nuclear and missile tests, it also blames the United States and South Korea for worsening tension with their military exercises....

2. In his election campaigns, Trump raised many interesting suggestions which are largely forgotten. The following are excerpts from Stephanie Condon's March 29, 2016 article headlined "Donald Trump: Japan, South Korea might need nuclear weapons" at http://www.cbsnews.com/news/donald-trum ... r-weapons/

(Begin excerpts)Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump on Tuesday night defended his assertion that more countries, such as Japan, South Korea or even Saudi Arabia, may need to develop their own nuclear weapons.

"You have so many countries already -- China, Pakistan, you have so many countries, Russia -- you have so many countries right now that have them," Trump said in a Milwaukee, Wisconsin town hall televised by CNN. "Now, wouldn't you rather, in a certain sense, have Japan have nuclear weapons when North Korea has nuclear weapons?".... (End excerpts)

3. It is okay for China to reject the "China responsibility theory" and push the responsibility to others, saying North Korea's nuclear missile threat to the US, South Korea and Japan is none of its business. However, as seen from the event of 1950-1953 Korean War, everybody expects China to respond if the US tries to exterminate North Korean nuclear weapons.

Contrary to its assertion in an article at http://www.bjreview.com.cn/special/node_45061.htm that "China should be responsible for its own people and the country's interests first", China's contradictory stance on North Korea's nuclear programme is bringing it to a nuclear collision course with the US. It is simply courting disaster as in the Cantonese idiom "laa si soeng san 揦 屎 上 身", literally meaning "soiling one's body with the dung of others".

A bodyguard always becomes the first target prior to the attack on the main target. Using another analogy, the core of an onion is reached after the removal of outer layers. As China is viewed as the bodyguard for North Korea, it can't be ruled out that it will become an innocent victim of a preemptive nuclear strike if the US decides to launch an attack on North Korea.

Besides economic sanctions and military strike, the US has other options to deal with North Korea such as:

(a) Allowing Japan and South Korea to develop their own nuclear weapons.

(b) Playing with the Taiwan card, a means which North Korea had threatened to play in the past and is not shy to use in the future.

North Korea's medium-range missiles can hit Beijing, Shanghai and Tianjin. The whole of China is now within the range of North Korea's nuclear missiles. China must wake up to the reality that its life-and-death problem is not just "lowering tension on the Korean peninsula" but "immediately exterminating all North Korean nuclear weapons" which will send China and its people to extinction one day. China's stand on North Korea's nuclear programme is beyond all comprehension.

Like Samuel Taylor Coleridge's long narrative poem about the innocent Christabel caught in the tight embrace of the evil Geraldine under a spell, China has fallen into the tight grip of North Korea. Using a less romantic analogy, China's puzzling stance on North Korea's nuclear threat is akin to a woman with dementia embracing tightly to her chest a baby zombie that continues feeding till she is all dry and dead. China now has the golden opportunity of getting rid of the North Korean nuclear scourge, that is, totally washing its hands of all North Korean affairs and giving the US a free hand to deal with the rogue regime, as in the Chinese idiom "jie dao sha ren", literally meaning "borrowing a knife for the killing". It is a life-and-death decision for China.

spacemonkey wrote:NK is China's wacky neighbor, and their (China's) job to watch their neighborhood.

One fine day, the watchman will point his gun (or nuclear missiles) backward in his attempt to rob his master.

"Attempt" is the key word here. Someone could also attempt to derail a train with a paintball. I really don't think Kim Jung Unstable will intentionally do something that stupid as to shoot at China, Japan, S Korea, or anyone else, unless he is ready to die within an hour. However accidents are always possible, but how will they be perceived by who was attacked by accident is the question.